Blaire Van Valkenburgh is an American

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

and holds the Donald R. Dickey Chair in Vertebrate Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at

University of California Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Cal ...

. She is a former president of

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world. Mission and activities SVP has about 2,300 members inte ...

Early life and education

Van Valkenburgh was born in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and raised in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...

. Her mother, Lois Van Valkenburgh, was a civil rights activist. From 1964 to 1970, she attended T. C. Williams High School. Van Valkenburgh received a bachelor's degree from Stockton State College in New Jersey in 1974, a Ph.D. in Vertebrate Paleobiology from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in 1984, where she worked with

Robert Bakker Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor ...

, after which she worked as a postdoctoral fellow with

Alan Walker Alan Olav Walker (born 24 August 1997) is a Norwegian DJ and record producer. His songs "Faded (Alan Walker song), Faded", "Sing Me to Sleep", "Alone (Alan Walker song), Alone", "All Falls Down (Alan Walker song), All Falls Down" (with Noah Cy ...

at Johns Hopkins before moving to UCLA in 1986.

Career

Van Valkenburgh is a

and holds the Donald R. Dickey Chair in Vertebrate Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at

. She has served as chair of the department and as associate dean of academic programs in the life sciences at UCLA.The focus of her research is the

paleobiology Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. An investigator in this field is known as a paleobiologist. Paleobiology is closely ...

and

paleoecology Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...

Carnivora Carnivora ( ) is an order of placental mammals specialized primarily in eating flesh, whose members are formally referred to as carnivorans. The order Carnivora is the sixth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species. Carnivor ...

. Her contributions include quantification of guild structure in fossil carnivore communities and the study of iterative evolution in carnivore feeding adaptations. Van Valkenburgh served as president of the

from 2008 to 2010 and as associate editor of the

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology The ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1980 by Jiri Zidek (University of Oklahoma). It covers all aspects of vertebrate paleontology, including vertebrate origins, evolu ...

from 2011 to 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Valkenburgh, Blaire American paleontologists Living people American taxonomists Women taxonomists American women paleontologists 1952 births 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Scientists from Virginia Scientists from Washington, D.C. Scientists from Alexandria, Virginia Stockton University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty T. C. Williams High School alumni Presidents of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology